Chapter Three: The Painting
Ginny began as she normally did: getting familiar with the subject. Normally she’d spend some time talking to the person, getting to know how they worked and their thought process and things like that. It gave her a feel of how the painting would go. However, she couldn’t really talk with Malfoy about this, so she had to get his character from memory.
Thoughtfully, she did a quick outline of his figure reclining on the couch. It became a vague conglomeration of bendy lines that only formed a body if you squinted slightly and turned your head a little to the left, as she was doing now. Shrugging, she figured it didn’t really matter what it looked like now; she was just outlining it, anyway, and getting a feel for his character.
He was an arse, she determined quickly, going through all her memories of meeting him and interacting with him. An arse and an arsehole, and with this thought she solidified the hard line of his jaw, making his obstinate chin stronger and slightly thrust out, daring the viewer to contradict him.
Ginny remembered the way his lips would curve nastily whenever he saw her, so with quick flicks of her pencil she added a mouth that was partially twisted into his customary sneer.
This expression was also one that he used to look down on manure. Ginny could recall quite easily the day that Pansy had been out gardening, spreading fertilizer like it was turd shaped confetti, and he had entered the courtyard and noticed Pansy’s boots first, his lip curling in disgust. Then he had noticed Ginny standing near Pansy, and his expression hadn’t changed a bit.
It was hard to like him. She assumed that the only reason that Pansy and Theodore could stand to even be in the same room as him was because they all knew each other from childhood. Being raised together as holier-than-thou purebloods probably had something to do with that. At this thought, she idly drew in his strong nose, focusing particularly on the little uplift at the end of his nose—a retroussé nose, her inner Hermione reminded her.
Ginny realized that in almost every encounter she had had with Malfoy, they had fought in some way, usually arguing and getting nowhere at all. It was no wonder that they didn’t get along; even if there wasn’t the whole Malfoy/Weasley thing going on, just the fact that some of the things they had called each other were simply so offensive that they would guarantee a continuation of their feud.
Back in Hogwarts, she had taken it upon herself to continue Fred and George’s legacy by pranking the school. Of course, this quickly turned to an all-out prank war and insult fest with Malfoy. The things they said to each other…
Ginny was grateful that she had progressed past the “your mum” jokes that she had oh-so-frequently indulged in during her school years. Just thinking about her lack of originality made her shudder. Those pathetic jokes had been the cause of many late night duels, as well as the resulting detentions. They hadn’t ever cursed each other in the halls—well, Ginny cut herself off, there was that one time with the Bat Bogeys…she thought to herself fondly.
Frowning to herself, she realized that she must have been subconsciously suppressing the amount of duels done secretly during the middle of passing period; she was almost positive that she had gotten hit with a Densaugeo somewhere in her fifth year, and she had responded to this with a Confundus Charm that made him forget completely who he was or where he was.
So, Malfoy had panicked when he noticed a menacing redhead with buckteeth that were growing at an alarming rate swooping down on him like a vengeful angel of death (or a vengeful angel of chipmunks, take your pick). He had screamed like a little girl—Ginny could still remember this sound and the fond memories it brought—and ran off. The next day they had found him blubbering to Myrtle in the bathroom, who hadn’t bothered to let him know that he was a wizard and all that usual rot, content to just let him wallow in his misery with her.
The Charm had been reversed and he had immediately pointed a tear-stained finger at her, which she had denied profusely. McGonagall had believed her, bless her old heart, but Snape hadn’t bothered with any formalities and had snatched her wand away, casting Priori Incantatem and proving without a doubt that she had cast it, along with the reversal for the Densaugeo and, embarrassingly, a Point Me because she had gotten lost somewhere on the fifth floor.
She had gotten three weeks' worth of detention. She would have had a whole month’s worth, but Snape claimed that her Point Me made him laugh, so he took one off as a reward. Ginny was pretty sure his exact words were “Oh, Salazar’s balls, that’s priceless,” but he had said it so quietly that she hadn’t been exactly positive.
Needless to say, their relationship hadn’t exactly been harmonious. In fact, she couldn’t remember a single time in which Malfoy had been even remotely polite to her, and she frowned at this revelation. He didn’t like her so he went out of his way to continue their somewhat trivial rivalry whenever they met? That made no sense, since even Pansy and Theodore had every reason to hate her, too, but they didn’t. What was different between them and Malfoy?
He didn’t waste an opportunity to sneer at her or remark snidely on her clothing and poor status (although now that insult had fallen into disuse due to the fact that she wasn’t poor anymore). And despite this obvious loathing towards all things Ginny Weasley, Pansy and Theodore continued to like him. Was there some hidden side to him that she just didn’t see?
Ginny thought about it some more, and came to the following conclusion: even though Pansy and Theo were perfectly nice to her, when they were out in public they seemed to adopt that upper crust pureblood persona that just screamed prick to everyone they directed it to. Malfoy did that to her. Maybe there was something to Malfoy that she just never saw.
An even more plausible option was that she was trying to find excuses for his behavior, and he just generally was an overall arsehole to everyone that wasn’t Pansy and Theodore. Shrugging, Ginny decided to give up on analyzing Malfoy’s relationships. Instead, she turned back to something she could be sure of: his animosity towards her.
Thinking back on the way he had gripped his wand when dueling, she bypassed drawing his arm and focused on the intricate details on his hand that was limply hanging in the air. Unlike many artists, she didn’t have a problem with hands; they were actually one of her strong points. This probably was because she spent about an entire year going through a fanatic stage in which she just drew hands in various positions and gestures.
Her pencil made its way to his forearm, and Ginny felt her lips quirk in a small smile. She secretly loved forearms and Malfoy happened have the most delicious pair that she had ever seen. She couldn’t wait until she picked up her paints so she could paint the fine tiny hairs scattered across the pale skin of his arm glowing golden in the sunlight.
She drew the lines of his defined chest sharply, finding it almost curiously free of hair. Not that she was complaining; she never had been fond of men that had more hair on their chests than on their heads. She drew the cradle that his hipbones made as well, noticing just how he jutted out spectacularly. Really, if he wasn’t such an utter berk…
She determinedly avoided the thing directly below his hips; she’d cover that later. It was left as just a blank space, similar to the space where she had left a place for his eyes to go. Instead, she focused more on his thighs.
With one thigh bent so beautifully, Ginny could see exactly where his huge muscles would bunch underneath his skin. She found herself wondering if they’d ripple underneath her nails, the delicate golden hairs dancing above his shuddering muscles…
Fuck! she caught herself, blushing violently and closing her eyes to dissipate the image. She didn’t need to be thinking like that about a Malfoy—even if he did have nice forearms, thighs, hip bones, eyes…hell, a nice everything—especially when she was supposed to be painting him!
Focus on something else Ginny. Focus on…Quidditch. And the Chudley Cannons' losses for the past century.
This unfortunately had her turning back to his thighs, imagining them wrapped tightly around a broom, racing for a snitch…
Her treacherous mind instantly went haywire with the following image, and she attempted to move on to a part of his anatomy that was less innuendo-laced: his feet. Despite the fact that most people’s feet were utterly disgusting and nasty, Malfoy made his pale, narrow feet manage to be elegant and lovely. Well, maybe “lovely” is a bad word choice…Ginny amended, remembering that she was talking about his feet.
She felt her smile quirking back into place as she drew the tiny little squares that were his toenails: they looked pedicured from this distance, and she wouldn’t put it past him to have done just that.
Her pencil traced the graceful line of his calf, connecting it with the bottom half of his thigh. There were small, golden hairs scattered across the backs of his calves, too, and Ginny grinned, idly humming a tune to herself. The rest of him wasn’t that hard to finish up, since it was essentially just mirroring the other parts of him. She didn’t have to mentally interact with him as actively as she had before.
Of course it didn’t hurt, so while continuing her off-tune humming, she subconsciously imagined doing all sorts of things with Malfoy, from perfectly innocent things such as cursing his innards into his outards to decidedly less innocent things such as finding out just what those sinful lips would feel like pressed to her skin.
Those particular thoughts were always stopped almost immediately, but they still managed to sneak in, despite her valiant efforts to avoid seeing Malfoy as a potential…man.
With a wave of her wand, she opened up her paints, and her brush was already diving for the right colors to begin painting Malfoy. She paused with her brush millimeters away from the canvas, looking back up and meeting Malfoy’s eyes.
Pansy was utterly missing from the scene, and in her wake was the purest form of Malfoy. The eyes are off, she thought with a frown, but that wasn’t much of a problem since she had decided to save those for last, anyway. The base layer of skin was simple and easy, since it was akin to just filling in the lines. However, it was the unearthly glow that seemed to emanate off his skin that she knew was going to be harder. That, and his silky hair.
Ginny was aware of the fact that with the actual size of this painting, it was going to take several hours longer than it typically took her. However, she found that by painting Malfoy she was sinking deeper into her “mood” as she went—farther than she had gone before, and she could practically feel herself painting him even more quickly than she had ever done.
Once the rough outline of his body was complete and painted in with its base layer, Ginny decided to turn to the scenery around him, to get an idea of how to do the delicately glinting light that would dance across his apple blossom skin. It was easy to do the couch; she had mastered still life years ago. The artfully smudged black shadows that seemed to surround the couch were just as easy; after all, the prominent theme in many of her paintings was the devastation of Malfoy’s eyes.
She then reached for a smaller brush to begin to work on his glowing skin, and that took a good amount of time. Pansy had closed her eyes when she realized that Ginny wasn’t focusing on her face, and she dozed for a bit, waking up every so often to reach for a sip of the potion and shuddering delicately at the taste. That was how Ginny knew the time passed; Pansy would take a sip roughly every hour to stay as Malfoy.
The paint itself came on in multiple layers from a daffodil yellow to a rosy pink, all combining together to form the warm, pale glow that was Malfoy’s silky skin. She took more time trying to capture the glow that seemed to emanate from his skin and the way the sunlight seemed to amplify that glow than she had spent drawing him in the first place. When she was finally done with his skin, it was perfect, pale, and glowing softly, but it still wasn’t complete yet.
Ginny had great fun reaching for her tiniest brush, barely the length of her hand and only a combination of three miniscule hairs. It was one of her more expensive brushes, as well: those three hairs were actually from the head of a baby Thestral, and were considered to be practically illegal. Since Ginny took things like the law to be just a minor inconvenience, anyway, she didn’t have any problem searching for dealers that would sell her the hairs.
Only the best brushes were made by the artists themselves, and all of Ginny’s favorite brushes were made by her. She only had four that actually were made of Thestral hair, though, and she had been using all four exclusively on Malfoy. Somehow, she knew it was appropriate.
With this tiny brush, she searched with a critical eye for the perfect shade of yellow and gold, a pale golden poppy color that worked just perfectly. It wasn’t too dark to show up vividly on his skin, and it would only be visible as the faint hairs on his legs, giving the appearance that the hairs were there without making him seem like a modern-day Sasquatch.
Delicately swiping the brush across the appropriate limbs, Ginny felt the most satisfaction come from the tiny rows of golden hairs on his forearms. She had to practically press her nose against the painting so she could see it perfectly, so when she shifted her weight on her stool she accidentally brushed against the dark paint of the couch and had to repaint that part, ignoring the fact that there was now a dark smear on the tip of her nose.
She paused and stretched when she had finished up with that, yawning wearily. This painting was huge, and she knew she would probably be here for a while. However, her insistently growling stomach was informing her that if it didn’t get food now, she wouldn’t finish anything today.
“Pansy,” she called out, and Malfoy opened befuddled eyes.
“Are you done?” she questioned, voice thick with sleep. Ginny grinned; she must have been painting a long time. Judging by the way the sunlight had shifted a little lower, creating a fuzzier appearance, she knew that it really had been a few hours. Additionally, she was positive that she had seen Pansy reaching for the potion a good five or so times, so she knew that it had been a really long time.
“No, but I’m hungry.” At this, Mimsy popped back into the room.
“What would the Missus and the Master like?” it questioned. Ginny shrugged.
“What do you want, Pansy?” she asked, hoping to stave off making decisions. She was too busy examining the painting. She had yet to draw the window with its ethereal light, but it was vaguely sketched out. She knew it wouldn’t take too long—maybe, if she got working on it right away, two or three hours, tops.
“Just bring us some waffles with whipped cream, strawberries, and a side of Theodore Nott,” Pansy commanded, waving her hand idly. Ginny quirked a grin at the way she phrased it, before Transfiguring a nearby vase into a silky robe and tossing it in the direction of Pansy as Mimsy popped back out. Pansy wandered over to the portrait and sucked in a breath.
“Salazar, Ginny, you’re brilliant,” she breathed out, tracing the lines of Malfoy’s body with her eye, focusing on the subtle glow and texture. Ginny adopted an “aw, shucks” expression and busied herself with straightening her brushes. Mimsy popped back into existence, a tray held aloft and looking slightly fearful.
“Mimsy couldn’t find Master Nott,” it said, eyes slit as if in preparation of a blow that was to come. Pansy shrugged while Ginny looked amused.
“Probably couldn’t stand to see his best mate mess with his other best mate’s bits,” Pansy said without mercy, and Ginny fought hard to not look at the particular bits that Pansy was talking about, so artfully framed by either side of the silky fabric that Pansy had been too lazy to belt closed.
It was harder than she expected, and she was disgruntled at this revelation.
Pansy had reached for her wand, transfiguring a small table and two chairs into existence for Mimsy to put the tray. After doing so, it bowed so low that its floppy ears brushed the carpet, before popping away again, probably in the hopes that if it was gone, Pansy and Ginny wouldn’t remember to punish it for not finding Theodore.
They both sat at the table, digging in to the waffles with gusto. Ginny idly glanced at the painting of Malfoy, finding some amusement in the fact that he was currently bald and there was an empty space where his eyes would be as well as where his bits would be. Ruefully, she promised herself that she’d finish his bits, at least, after lunch, and get that done with as soon as possible. His eyes, however, she knew were going to take a little bit longer…
“What are you thinking about?” Pansy asked, but at that instant she pushed her chair back almost violently, spasming forward and clutching her middle as if she was going to burst to pieces. Alarmed, Ginny jumped to her feet, attempting to find out what was wrong, how she could help, anything at all. Instead, almost as quickly as it had come it was gone, and in Malfoy’s place was a slightly disheveled Pansy.
She brushed her short hair back in quick, efficient swipes, and Ginny stared, trying to get over the fact that where Malfoy had just been, Pansy was now. The process hadn’t lasted long at all, and the shock of a man morphing into a woman was still something that was hard to take in.
The hair had actually shortened from Malfoy’s lengthy locks, and the texture now looked different. Crouching down, it had been hard to determine Pansy’s height, but when she straightened again Ginny realized that he must tower over the petite brunette when they were standing side by side.
She hadn’t really noticed before. Ginny herself stood at a mountainous five foot nine inches, so standing next to Malfoy, who she guessed was just a little over six feet, hadn’t been all that different.
Pansy tightened the belt on the robe subconsciously, and Ginny noticed, arching an eyebrow. Pansy shrugged.
“I don’t have a problem with flaunting Draco’s body, but I’m a little bit more concerned about flashing mine around,” she explained easily and they both resumed their places at the table.
“Wonder how you’d feel about that if Theo walked in here now,” Ginny mused deviously, looking at her over the mug of tea she had picked up. At the way Pansy’s face gathered a faint pink tinge that was probably equivalent to Ginny’s full-on mauve flush, Ginny grinned to herself, knowing that Pansy was cursing mentally for being so transparent.
“I’m not sure you’re exactly in a position to point fingers,” Pansy said, fiddling with the napkin in her lap and pushing the blush away. Ginny watched enviously and wished that she had the same level of control, and knew it was something that had been practically hammered in since Pansy was born. Ginny knew that she personally had no chance to teach herself that ability to push emotions away, especially since she had been born with her heart on her sleeve.
“What do you mean?” Ginny questioned indifferently, fiddling with her own napkin to avoid meeting Pansy’s accusatory violet eyes.
“I mean that I noticed how your eyes lingered on a certain someone’s anatomy,” she said pointedly, and Ginny looked up guiltily before freezing, words sticking in her mouth.
“Ogling your betters again, Weasley?” came a smooth, silky voice from a door in the bookshelf that Ginny was positive hadn’t been there before. Panic closed her throat with fear before she realized that Malfoy absolutely couldn’t see the painting. Raising a hand casually to her hair where she had stashed her wand, she brushed her fingers against the thin wood, thinking the spell as loudly as she mentally could towards the easel. Thankfully, Ginny was quite adept at this particular spell, and the painting suddenly morphed from one of a naked Malfoy to a much more innocent painting of a bowl of fruit.
This was the painting that was the cover for a good third of her other paintings stored away in her flat, to prevent prying eyes (Like Theodore’s, she thought with no small amount of loathing) from seeing what she had really painted. Pansy and Theodore had long ago decided that she was nutters for painting the same bowl of fruit hundreds of times, but now Pansy gave Ginny a pointed look that clearly stated that Ginny was in for a good interrogation.
Shit, Ginny thought to herself, knowing that now that Pansy had realized that all those bowls of fruit had just been illusions, she’d want to see the real paintings. Meaning that about a few hundred versions of Malfoy’s eyes, drawn when she was half asleep or in a particularly deep and moody frame of mind, would be revealed for her to see. Oh, shit, she repeated mentally, before pushing that out of her mind. She needed to be in her top form to deal with Malfoy.
“That makes two of us, Malfoy,” Ginny snapped back, giving him a darkly pointed glare in response to his evaluating gaze that he had cast on her paint covered figure. Even though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt a trill of excitement shoot through her at the prospect of a good argument.
Pansy and Theodore generally just ignored her when she was in this aggressive mood, lusting for a fight, but she knew that she could rely on Malfoy to sink to her level and return her insults with the same amount of smug relish.
Theo came into the room from behind Malfoy, giving Ginny and Pansy an apologetic look, mouthing, “I couldn’t stop him,” and shrugging, giving Ginny the impression that he must not have tried too hard.
“Hardly,” Malfoy said, lip curling in a haughty sneer. “As if a Malfoy would do anything but look down on a Weasley,” he sniffed imperiously. Ginny arched an eyebrow at this, smug smile twisting her lips.
“Oh really?” she questioned loftily. “And pray tell, what do you think happened between Silvain Malfoy and Francesca Weasley? They just ‘looked down’ their way to six children?”
He blanched at this, obviously not recalling until now that vital piece of their family tree and how it had once crossed, unfortunately.
For the most part, both families liked to pretend it didn’t happen, or it was just some “bad blood” in the family for that one generation. Ginny only brought it up since he had made such an easy opening for her to prove him wrong, but generally she liked to avoid the thought of a Weasley coupling with a Malfoy, of all people. Of course, this had happened about a millennia ago, but both the Malfoy and Weasley bloodlines were extensive enough and stubborn enough to keep track of their relations.
“I think we can both agree that we can write that example off on account of them both being mad as hatters,” he said almost painfully. Ginny nodded, reluctantly agreeing. That really had been a low blow, and that particular insult had the unfortunate ability to cut both ways and remind both of them that congeniality was possible.
Ha, isn’t that a laugh, Ginny thought with a grin.
“Agreed. What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?” she demanded, ignoring his look that he gave her.
“Visiting my friends,” he stressed, giving her an icy glare. “And what are you doing? Swimming around in acrylics and spreading Weasley germs?” Ginny had to stomp down on the urge to giggle absurdly at the image of Malfoy cringing away from her, crying, “Ew, Weasley cooties!” Instead, she snorted disdainfully.
“I doubt you’d protest if I got ‘Weasley germs’ on you, anyway,” she said dismissively, turning back to her waffles. He looked flabbergasted, glancing to Theodore to confirm that she had just said what he thought she had said. Did she just insinuate…?
Ginny, on the other hand, was hitting herself for giving him encouragement. Why would he even care? It was just because she had just spent the better part of five hours staring at his gorgeous, naked body. That was the only reason she was now giving partially veiled and very much convoluted sexual invitations.
“So, Theo, I think Ginny’s finished the fruit up just fine!” Pansy decided to chirp in loudly, and all of them looked at her as if she had grown a second head. Pansy didn’t chirp; Theodore did, and Pansy was usually a bit more restrained. That was resorting to such drastic measures to keep Ginny quiet showed just how nervous she was about the situation.
“You were over here drawing fruit, Weasley?” Malfoy repeated incredulously, taking a few steps closer so he could look at the easel. In her defense, Ginny’s illusion painting was modeled off an original that she had once painted (granted, that had been years ago), so it wasn’t as if it was drawn in crayons or anything. He looked at it as if she had barely managed to draw a stick figure. “Couldn’t you have painted some fruit where I don’t have to breathe the same air as you?” Ginny huffed, rolling her eyes.
“You’re the one who chose to come here, Malfoy. It’s not like I forced you to be in the same room as me,” she reminded him venomously. He gave her a withering stare for reminding him of this fact.
“Yes, but I didn’t expect it to be inhabited by an airheaded, artsy type like you, Weasley,” Malfoy informed her sardonically in a debonair tone. Ginny stood, hardly noticing that she did when she took a menacing step forward, giving him a smoldering glower. He had gone beyond the line of joking insults and into dangerous territory: Ginny was extremely sensitive when it came to her chosen profession, since her mother had put her through so much grief when she had first decided to become an artist. She didn’t like taking shit from anyone in regards to what she did for a living.
“At least I have friends who appreciate me for who I am, Malfoy, and don’t just keep me around for decoration and old times’ sake,” Ginny said, spitting the words out with vicious contempt. She hardly cared what Pansy and Theodore thought at the moment; she could apologize to them later, anyway.
“Let me remind you that they were my friends first, Weasley,” he growled back, two slashes of amaranth pink on his cheekbones that brought attention to just how defined the bones of his face were, as well as making Ginny highly aware of the fact that she was really pushing his buttons now. But she couldn’t stop herself, not like this, not with him.
“Oh really?” she questioned in an arched tone. “And where were these ‘friends’ of yours in the aftermath of the almost-destruction of everything that I hold dear? Certainly not sitting with you with your parents, looking beaten and out of place.” The silence that came after this comment made Ginny realize that this time, it was she that had gone too far. But, in a way, it had the desired effect: his eyes, which had previously been shielded and indifferent, had transformed into what she had been missing with Pansy.
Haunted pools of grey, framed by golden lashes and a face frozen in an expression of indifference, were locked on Ginny’s with deadly accuracy, seeing, but not seeing her. She couldn’t help it: even though she had just insulted all three of them practically simultaneously, the craving to paint and capture clawed at her insides like a rabid animal.
Reaching up for her wand, she shrunk all her items and quickly shoved them into a small chest designed just for this purpose, knowing that they would be protected from jostling inside of that chest. She dropped it into her pocket, turning to Theo. He noticed her desperate look, and thankfully knew what she was requesting with her eyes, hand trailing down to his signet ring.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and Apparated away.
Whether Ginny was apologizing for the disintegration of their partially-cordial meeting, bringing up Malfoy’s past, or Apparating away and leaving them to deal with the mess she had created was unknown even to her. But at that moment, she didn’t care.
Miles away in her flat, she was frantically, desperately trying to capture the look in Malfoy’s eyes, pushing the feeling of guilt aside with more trouble that she liked to admit.
Ginny began as she normally did: getting familiar with the subject. Normally she’d spend some time talking to the person, getting to know how they worked and their thought process and things like that. It gave her a feel of how the painting would go. However, she couldn’t really talk with Malfoy about this, so she had to get his character from memory.
Thoughtfully, she did a quick outline of his figure reclining on the couch. It became a vague conglomeration of bendy lines that only formed a body if you squinted slightly and turned your head a little to the left, as she was doing now. Shrugging, she figured it didn’t really matter what it looked like now; she was just outlining it, anyway, and getting a feel for his character.
He was an arse, she determined quickly, going through all her memories of meeting him and interacting with him. An arse and an arsehole, and with this thought she solidified the hard line of his jaw, making his obstinate chin stronger and slightly thrust out, daring the viewer to contradict him.
Ginny remembered the way his lips would curve nastily whenever he saw her, so with quick flicks of her pencil she added a mouth that was partially twisted into his customary sneer.
This expression was also one that he used to look down on manure. Ginny could recall quite easily the day that Pansy had been out gardening, spreading fertilizer like it was turd shaped confetti, and he had entered the courtyard and noticed Pansy’s boots first, his lip curling in disgust. Then he had noticed Ginny standing near Pansy, and his expression hadn’t changed a bit.
It was hard to like him. She assumed that the only reason that Pansy and Theodore could stand to even be in the same room as him was because they all knew each other from childhood. Being raised together as holier-than-thou purebloods probably had something to do with that. At this thought, she idly drew in his strong nose, focusing particularly on the little uplift at the end of his nose—a retroussé nose, her inner Hermione reminded her.
Ginny realized that in almost every encounter she had had with Malfoy, they had fought in some way, usually arguing and getting nowhere at all. It was no wonder that they didn’t get along; even if there wasn’t the whole Malfoy/Weasley thing going on, just the fact that some of the things they had called each other were simply so offensive that they would guarantee a continuation of their feud.
Back in Hogwarts, she had taken it upon herself to continue Fred and George’s legacy by pranking the school. Of course, this quickly turned to an all-out prank war and insult fest with Malfoy. The things they said to each other…
Ginny was grateful that she had progressed past the “your mum” jokes that she had oh-so-frequently indulged in during her school years. Just thinking about her lack of originality made her shudder. Those pathetic jokes had been the cause of many late night duels, as well as the resulting detentions. They hadn’t ever cursed each other in the halls—well, Ginny cut herself off, there was that one time with the Bat Bogeys…she thought to herself fondly.
Frowning to herself, she realized that she must have been subconsciously suppressing the amount of duels done secretly during the middle of passing period; she was almost positive that she had gotten hit with a Densaugeo somewhere in her fifth year, and she had responded to this with a Confundus Charm that made him forget completely who he was or where he was.
So, Malfoy had panicked when he noticed a menacing redhead with buckteeth that were growing at an alarming rate swooping down on him like a vengeful angel of death (or a vengeful angel of chipmunks, take your pick). He had screamed like a little girl—Ginny could still remember this sound and the fond memories it brought—and ran off. The next day they had found him blubbering to Myrtle in the bathroom, who hadn’t bothered to let him know that he was a wizard and all that usual rot, content to just let him wallow in his misery with her.
The Charm had been reversed and he had immediately pointed a tear-stained finger at her, which she had denied profusely. McGonagall had believed her, bless her old heart, but Snape hadn’t bothered with any formalities and had snatched her wand away, casting Priori Incantatem and proving without a doubt that she had cast it, along with the reversal for the Densaugeo and, embarrassingly, a Point Me because she had gotten lost somewhere on the fifth floor.
She had gotten three weeks' worth of detention. She would have had a whole month’s worth, but Snape claimed that her Point Me made him laugh, so he took one off as a reward. Ginny was pretty sure his exact words were “Oh, Salazar’s balls, that’s priceless,” but he had said it so quietly that she hadn’t been exactly positive.
Needless to say, their relationship hadn’t exactly been harmonious. In fact, she couldn’t remember a single time in which Malfoy had been even remotely polite to her, and she frowned at this revelation. He didn’t like her so he went out of his way to continue their somewhat trivial rivalry whenever they met? That made no sense, since even Pansy and Theodore had every reason to hate her, too, but they didn’t. What was different between them and Malfoy?
He didn’t waste an opportunity to sneer at her or remark snidely on her clothing and poor status (although now that insult had fallen into disuse due to the fact that she wasn’t poor anymore). And despite this obvious loathing towards all things Ginny Weasley, Pansy and Theodore continued to like him. Was there some hidden side to him that she just didn’t see?
Ginny thought about it some more, and came to the following conclusion: even though Pansy and Theo were perfectly nice to her, when they were out in public they seemed to adopt that upper crust pureblood persona that just screamed prick to everyone they directed it to. Malfoy did that to her. Maybe there was something to Malfoy that she just never saw.
An even more plausible option was that she was trying to find excuses for his behavior, and he just generally was an overall arsehole to everyone that wasn’t Pansy and Theodore. Shrugging, Ginny decided to give up on analyzing Malfoy’s relationships. Instead, she turned back to something she could be sure of: his animosity towards her.
Thinking back on the way he had gripped his wand when dueling, she bypassed drawing his arm and focused on the intricate details on his hand that was limply hanging in the air. Unlike many artists, she didn’t have a problem with hands; they were actually one of her strong points. This probably was because she spent about an entire year going through a fanatic stage in which she just drew hands in various positions and gestures.
Her pencil made its way to his forearm, and Ginny felt her lips quirk in a small smile. She secretly loved forearms and Malfoy happened have the most delicious pair that she had ever seen. She couldn’t wait until she picked up her paints so she could paint the fine tiny hairs scattered across the pale skin of his arm glowing golden in the sunlight.
She drew the lines of his defined chest sharply, finding it almost curiously free of hair. Not that she was complaining; she never had been fond of men that had more hair on their chests than on their heads. She drew the cradle that his hipbones made as well, noticing just how he jutted out spectacularly. Really, if he wasn’t such an utter berk…
She determinedly avoided the thing directly below his hips; she’d cover that later. It was left as just a blank space, similar to the space where she had left a place for his eyes to go. Instead, she focused more on his thighs.
With one thigh bent so beautifully, Ginny could see exactly where his huge muscles would bunch underneath his skin. She found herself wondering if they’d ripple underneath her nails, the delicate golden hairs dancing above his shuddering muscles…
Fuck! she caught herself, blushing violently and closing her eyes to dissipate the image. She didn’t need to be thinking like that about a Malfoy—even if he did have nice forearms, thighs, hip bones, eyes…hell, a nice everything—especially when she was supposed to be painting him!
Focus on something else Ginny. Focus on…Quidditch. And the Chudley Cannons' losses for the past century.
This unfortunately had her turning back to his thighs, imagining them wrapped tightly around a broom, racing for a snitch…
Her treacherous mind instantly went haywire with the following image, and she attempted to move on to a part of his anatomy that was less innuendo-laced: his feet. Despite the fact that most people’s feet were utterly disgusting and nasty, Malfoy made his pale, narrow feet manage to be elegant and lovely. Well, maybe “lovely” is a bad word choice…Ginny amended, remembering that she was talking about his feet.
She felt her smile quirking back into place as she drew the tiny little squares that were his toenails: they looked pedicured from this distance, and she wouldn’t put it past him to have done just that.
Her pencil traced the graceful line of his calf, connecting it with the bottom half of his thigh. There were small, golden hairs scattered across the backs of his calves, too, and Ginny grinned, idly humming a tune to herself. The rest of him wasn’t that hard to finish up, since it was essentially just mirroring the other parts of him. She didn’t have to mentally interact with him as actively as she had before.
Of course it didn’t hurt, so while continuing her off-tune humming, she subconsciously imagined doing all sorts of things with Malfoy, from perfectly innocent things such as cursing his innards into his outards to decidedly less innocent things such as finding out just what those sinful lips would feel like pressed to her skin.
Those particular thoughts were always stopped almost immediately, but they still managed to sneak in, despite her valiant efforts to avoid seeing Malfoy as a potential…man.
With a wave of her wand, she opened up her paints, and her brush was already diving for the right colors to begin painting Malfoy. She paused with her brush millimeters away from the canvas, looking back up and meeting Malfoy’s eyes.
Pansy was utterly missing from the scene, and in her wake was the purest form of Malfoy. The eyes are off, she thought with a frown, but that wasn’t much of a problem since she had decided to save those for last, anyway. The base layer of skin was simple and easy, since it was akin to just filling in the lines. However, it was the unearthly glow that seemed to emanate off his skin that she knew was going to be harder. That, and his silky hair.
Ginny was aware of the fact that with the actual size of this painting, it was going to take several hours longer than it typically took her. However, she found that by painting Malfoy she was sinking deeper into her “mood” as she went—farther than she had gone before, and she could practically feel herself painting him even more quickly than she had ever done.
Once the rough outline of his body was complete and painted in with its base layer, Ginny decided to turn to the scenery around him, to get an idea of how to do the delicately glinting light that would dance across his apple blossom skin. It was easy to do the couch; she had mastered still life years ago. The artfully smudged black shadows that seemed to surround the couch were just as easy; after all, the prominent theme in many of her paintings was the devastation of Malfoy’s eyes.
She then reached for a smaller brush to begin to work on his glowing skin, and that took a good amount of time. Pansy had closed her eyes when she realized that Ginny wasn’t focusing on her face, and she dozed for a bit, waking up every so often to reach for a sip of the potion and shuddering delicately at the taste. That was how Ginny knew the time passed; Pansy would take a sip roughly every hour to stay as Malfoy.
The paint itself came on in multiple layers from a daffodil yellow to a rosy pink, all combining together to form the warm, pale glow that was Malfoy’s silky skin. She took more time trying to capture the glow that seemed to emanate from his skin and the way the sunlight seemed to amplify that glow than she had spent drawing him in the first place. When she was finally done with his skin, it was perfect, pale, and glowing softly, but it still wasn’t complete yet.
Ginny had great fun reaching for her tiniest brush, barely the length of her hand and only a combination of three miniscule hairs. It was one of her more expensive brushes, as well: those three hairs were actually from the head of a baby Thestral, and were considered to be practically illegal. Since Ginny took things like the law to be just a minor inconvenience, anyway, she didn’t have any problem searching for dealers that would sell her the hairs.
Only the best brushes were made by the artists themselves, and all of Ginny’s favorite brushes were made by her. She only had four that actually were made of Thestral hair, though, and she had been using all four exclusively on Malfoy. Somehow, she knew it was appropriate.
With this tiny brush, she searched with a critical eye for the perfect shade of yellow and gold, a pale golden poppy color that worked just perfectly. It wasn’t too dark to show up vividly on his skin, and it would only be visible as the faint hairs on his legs, giving the appearance that the hairs were there without making him seem like a modern-day Sasquatch.
Delicately swiping the brush across the appropriate limbs, Ginny felt the most satisfaction come from the tiny rows of golden hairs on his forearms. She had to practically press her nose against the painting so she could see it perfectly, so when she shifted her weight on her stool she accidentally brushed against the dark paint of the couch and had to repaint that part, ignoring the fact that there was now a dark smear on the tip of her nose.
She paused and stretched when she had finished up with that, yawning wearily. This painting was huge, and she knew she would probably be here for a while. However, her insistently growling stomach was informing her that if it didn’t get food now, she wouldn’t finish anything today.
“Pansy,” she called out, and Malfoy opened befuddled eyes.
“Are you done?” she questioned, voice thick with sleep. Ginny grinned; she must have been painting a long time. Judging by the way the sunlight had shifted a little lower, creating a fuzzier appearance, she knew that it really had been a few hours. Additionally, she was positive that she had seen Pansy reaching for the potion a good five or so times, so she knew that it had been a really long time.
“No, but I’m hungry.” At this, Mimsy popped back into the room.
“What would the Missus and the Master like?” it questioned. Ginny shrugged.
“What do you want, Pansy?” she asked, hoping to stave off making decisions. She was too busy examining the painting. She had yet to draw the window with its ethereal light, but it was vaguely sketched out. She knew it wouldn’t take too long—maybe, if she got working on it right away, two or three hours, tops.
“Just bring us some waffles with whipped cream, strawberries, and a side of Theodore Nott,” Pansy commanded, waving her hand idly. Ginny quirked a grin at the way she phrased it, before Transfiguring a nearby vase into a silky robe and tossing it in the direction of Pansy as Mimsy popped back out. Pansy wandered over to the portrait and sucked in a breath.
“Salazar, Ginny, you’re brilliant,” she breathed out, tracing the lines of Malfoy’s body with her eye, focusing on the subtle glow and texture. Ginny adopted an “aw, shucks” expression and busied herself with straightening her brushes. Mimsy popped back into existence, a tray held aloft and looking slightly fearful.
“Mimsy couldn’t find Master Nott,” it said, eyes slit as if in preparation of a blow that was to come. Pansy shrugged while Ginny looked amused.
“Probably couldn’t stand to see his best mate mess with his other best mate’s bits,” Pansy said without mercy, and Ginny fought hard to not look at the particular bits that Pansy was talking about, so artfully framed by either side of the silky fabric that Pansy had been too lazy to belt closed.
It was harder than she expected, and she was disgruntled at this revelation.
Pansy had reached for her wand, transfiguring a small table and two chairs into existence for Mimsy to put the tray. After doing so, it bowed so low that its floppy ears brushed the carpet, before popping away again, probably in the hopes that if it was gone, Pansy and Ginny wouldn’t remember to punish it for not finding Theodore.
They both sat at the table, digging in to the waffles with gusto. Ginny idly glanced at the painting of Malfoy, finding some amusement in the fact that he was currently bald and there was an empty space where his eyes would be as well as where his bits would be. Ruefully, she promised herself that she’d finish his bits, at least, after lunch, and get that done with as soon as possible. His eyes, however, she knew were going to take a little bit longer…
“What are you thinking about?” Pansy asked, but at that instant she pushed her chair back almost violently, spasming forward and clutching her middle as if she was going to burst to pieces. Alarmed, Ginny jumped to her feet, attempting to find out what was wrong, how she could help, anything at all. Instead, almost as quickly as it had come it was gone, and in Malfoy’s place was a slightly disheveled Pansy.
She brushed her short hair back in quick, efficient swipes, and Ginny stared, trying to get over the fact that where Malfoy had just been, Pansy was now. The process hadn’t lasted long at all, and the shock of a man morphing into a woman was still something that was hard to take in.
The hair had actually shortened from Malfoy’s lengthy locks, and the texture now looked different. Crouching down, it had been hard to determine Pansy’s height, but when she straightened again Ginny realized that he must tower over the petite brunette when they were standing side by side.
She hadn’t really noticed before. Ginny herself stood at a mountainous five foot nine inches, so standing next to Malfoy, who she guessed was just a little over six feet, hadn’t been all that different.
Pansy tightened the belt on the robe subconsciously, and Ginny noticed, arching an eyebrow. Pansy shrugged.
“I don’t have a problem with flaunting Draco’s body, but I’m a little bit more concerned about flashing mine around,” she explained easily and they both resumed their places at the table.
“Wonder how you’d feel about that if Theo walked in here now,” Ginny mused deviously, looking at her over the mug of tea she had picked up. At the way Pansy’s face gathered a faint pink tinge that was probably equivalent to Ginny’s full-on mauve flush, Ginny grinned to herself, knowing that Pansy was cursing mentally for being so transparent.
“I’m not sure you’re exactly in a position to point fingers,” Pansy said, fiddling with the napkin in her lap and pushing the blush away. Ginny watched enviously and wished that she had the same level of control, and knew it was something that had been practically hammered in since Pansy was born. Ginny knew that she personally had no chance to teach herself that ability to push emotions away, especially since she had been born with her heart on her sleeve.
“What do you mean?” Ginny questioned indifferently, fiddling with her own napkin to avoid meeting Pansy’s accusatory violet eyes.
“I mean that I noticed how your eyes lingered on a certain someone’s anatomy,” she said pointedly, and Ginny looked up guiltily before freezing, words sticking in her mouth.
“Ogling your betters again, Weasley?” came a smooth, silky voice from a door in the bookshelf that Ginny was positive hadn’t been there before. Panic closed her throat with fear before she realized that Malfoy absolutely couldn’t see the painting. Raising a hand casually to her hair where she had stashed her wand, she brushed her fingers against the thin wood, thinking the spell as loudly as she mentally could towards the easel. Thankfully, Ginny was quite adept at this particular spell, and the painting suddenly morphed from one of a naked Malfoy to a much more innocent painting of a bowl of fruit.
This was the painting that was the cover for a good third of her other paintings stored away in her flat, to prevent prying eyes (Like Theodore’s, she thought with no small amount of loathing) from seeing what she had really painted. Pansy and Theodore had long ago decided that she was nutters for painting the same bowl of fruit hundreds of times, but now Pansy gave Ginny a pointed look that clearly stated that Ginny was in for a good interrogation.
Shit, Ginny thought to herself, knowing that now that Pansy had realized that all those bowls of fruit had just been illusions, she’d want to see the real paintings. Meaning that about a few hundred versions of Malfoy’s eyes, drawn when she was half asleep or in a particularly deep and moody frame of mind, would be revealed for her to see. Oh, shit, she repeated mentally, before pushing that out of her mind. She needed to be in her top form to deal with Malfoy.
“That makes two of us, Malfoy,” Ginny snapped back, giving him a darkly pointed glare in response to his evaluating gaze that he had cast on her paint covered figure. Even though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt a trill of excitement shoot through her at the prospect of a good argument.
Pansy and Theodore generally just ignored her when she was in this aggressive mood, lusting for a fight, but she knew that she could rely on Malfoy to sink to her level and return her insults with the same amount of smug relish.
Theo came into the room from behind Malfoy, giving Ginny and Pansy an apologetic look, mouthing, “I couldn’t stop him,” and shrugging, giving Ginny the impression that he must not have tried too hard.
“Hardly,” Malfoy said, lip curling in a haughty sneer. “As if a Malfoy would do anything but look down on a Weasley,” he sniffed imperiously. Ginny arched an eyebrow at this, smug smile twisting her lips.
“Oh really?” she questioned loftily. “And pray tell, what do you think happened between Silvain Malfoy and Francesca Weasley? They just ‘looked down’ their way to six children?”
He blanched at this, obviously not recalling until now that vital piece of their family tree and how it had once crossed, unfortunately.
For the most part, both families liked to pretend it didn’t happen, or it was just some “bad blood” in the family for that one generation. Ginny only brought it up since he had made such an easy opening for her to prove him wrong, but generally she liked to avoid the thought of a Weasley coupling with a Malfoy, of all people. Of course, this had happened about a millennia ago, but both the Malfoy and Weasley bloodlines were extensive enough and stubborn enough to keep track of their relations.
“I think we can both agree that we can write that example off on account of them both being mad as hatters,” he said almost painfully. Ginny nodded, reluctantly agreeing. That really had been a low blow, and that particular insult had the unfortunate ability to cut both ways and remind both of them that congeniality was possible.
Ha, isn’t that a laugh, Ginny thought with a grin.
“Agreed. What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?” she demanded, ignoring his look that he gave her.
“Visiting my friends,” he stressed, giving her an icy glare. “And what are you doing? Swimming around in acrylics and spreading Weasley germs?” Ginny had to stomp down on the urge to giggle absurdly at the image of Malfoy cringing away from her, crying, “Ew, Weasley cooties!” Instead, she snorted disdainfully.
“I doubt you’d protest if I got ‘Weasley germs’ on you, anyway,” she said dismissively, turning back to her waffles. He looked flabbergasted, glancing to Theodore to confirm that she had just said what he thought she had said. Did she just insinuate…?
Ginny, on the other hand, was hitting herself for giving him encouragement. Why would he even care? It was just because she had just spent the better part of five hours staring at his gorgeous, naked body. That was the only reason she was now giving partially veiled and very much convoluted sexual invitations.
“So, Theo, I think Ginny’s finished the fruit up just fine!” Pansy decided to chirp in loudly, and all of them looked at her as if she had grown a second head. Pansy didn’t chirp; Theodore did, and Pansy was usually a bit more restrained. That was resorting to such drastic measures to keep Ginny quiet showed just how nervous she was about the situation.
“You were over here drawing fruit, Weasley?” Malfoy repeated incredulously, taking a few steps closer so he could look at the easel. In her defense, Ginny’s illusion painting was modeled off an original that she had once painted (granted, that had been years ago), so it wasn’t as if it was drawn in crayons or anything. He looked at it as if she had barely managed to draw a stick figure. “Couldn’t you have painted some fruit where I don’t have to breathe the same air as you?” Ginny huffed, rolling her eyes.
“You’re the one who chose to come here, Malfoy. It’s not like I forced you to be in the same room as me,” she reminded him venomously. He gave her a withering stare for reminding him of this fact.
“Yes, but I didn’t expect it to be inhabited by an airheaded, artsy type like you, Weasley,” Malfoy informed her sardonically in a debonair tone. Ginny stood, hardly noticing that she did when she took a menacing step forward, giving him a smoldering glower. He had gone beyond the line of joking insults and into dangerous territory: Ginny was extremely sensitive when it came to her chosen profession, since her mother had put her through so much grief when she had first decided to become an artist. She didn’t like taking shit from anyone in regards to what she did for a living.
“At least I have friends who appreciate me for who I am, Malfoy, and don’t just keep me around for decoration and old times’ sake,” Ginny said, spitting the words out with vicious contempt. She hardly cared what Pansy and Theodore thought at the moment; she could apologize to them later, anyway.
“Let me remind you that they were my friends first, Weasley,” he growled back, two slashes of amaranth pink on his cheekbones that brought attention to just how defined the bones of his face were, as well as making Ginny highly aware of the fact that she was really pushing his buttons now. But she couldn’t stop herself, not like this, not with him.
“Oh really?” she questioned in an arched tone. “And where were these ‘friends’ of yours in the aftermath of the almost-destruction of everything that I hold dear? Certainly not sitting with you with your parents, looking beaten and out of place.” The silence that came after this comment made Ginny realize that this time, it was she that had gone too far. But, in a way, it had the desired effect: his eyes, which had previously been shielded and indifferent, had transformed into what she had been missing with Pansy.
Haunted pools of grey, framed by golden lashes and a face frozen in an expression of indifference, were locked on Ginny’s with deadly accuracy, seeing, but not seeing her. She couldn’t help it: even though she had just insulted all three of them practically simultaneously, the craving to paint and capture clawed at her insides like a rabid animal.
Reaching up for her wand, she shrunk all her items and quickly shoved them into a small chest designed just for this purpose, knowing that they would be protected from jostling inside of that chest. She dropped it into her pocket, turning to Theo. He noticed her desperate look, and thankfully knew what she was requesting with her eyes, hand trailing down to his signet ring.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and Apparated away.
Whether Ginny was apologizing for the disintegration of their partially-cordial meeting, bringing up Malfoy’s past, or Apparating away and leaving them to deal with the mess she had created was unknown even to her. But at that moment, she didn’t care.
Miles away in her flat, she was frantically, desperately trying to capture the look in Malfoy’s eyes, pushing the feeling of guilt aside with more trouble that she liked to admit.
Author notes: A/N: Eek! Okay, I'm not all too positive I like the ending, since it's kinda mean and sad! :/ BUT there's another chapter, so it'll be full of good stuff. Life is beyond crazy right now, for both me and Melissa, but she managed to edit it super fast.
Thank you for reading!
Roma
p.s. Yay for not waiting half a year for an update! :D
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